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We Don''t Know Hard Work

rusty6

rusty6

Well-known Member
Location
East central Sask.
I was posting this 1960 ad on FB and thought it might be of interest here too. Imagine farming 3000 acres per year with a John Deere 830 tractor. The farm was 15,000 acres and they ran 5 of the 830s. That is sitting out on an open tractor in the heat, cold, dust, bugs, whatever nature threw at you.
This was an ad in the Country Guide magazine in 1960.

mvphoto63736.jpg
 
I like those neat old magazine ads even some of the not farm related ones.

back then a $ meant a $. they didn't waste $ and most likely weren't in much if any debt

they probably could have used 10 or 20 tractors but didn't want to be leveraged.
 
(quoted from post at 08:38:51 10/22/20) I like those neat old magazine ads even some of the not farm related ones.

back then a $ meant a $. they didn't waste $ and most likely weren't in much if any debt

they probably could have used 10 or 20 tractors but didn't want to be leveraged.
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This was a pretty huge farm in 1960 when the average around my area was probably closer to 600 acres. The farm was still around in 1970 as somewhere I have a newspaper photo of a line of new 7520 four wheel drives (and one 4020) heading out to the same farm.
 
Yeah, were not as durable. Likely the men pictured grew up on fresh local foods. Very different than what a number of us grew on.
 
a family here I have known since the mid 60's used a CASE LA on propane to farm over 3000 acres a year, there was four brothers each one took a 8 hour shift running it around the clock during peak season,, it can be done but it sure takes hours in the saddle
 
That's a great post. Might be hard today to find workers that would be willing to do that
type of work. We put in 600 acres of rice for about 10 yrs. with two JD R's....I thought
that was something. I knew a family that dry farmed 240 acres with one JD H until the mid-
60's.
 
(quoted from post at 09:08:05 10/22/20) That's a great post. Might be hard today to find workers that would be willing to do that
type of work. We put in 600 acres of rice for about 10 yrs. with two JD R's....I thought
that was something. I knew a family that dry farmed 240 acres with one JD H until the mid-
60's.
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In the fine print it says that they ran round the clock in 12 hour shifts. The 830 would run 12 hours on a tank without running out of diesel.
 
In early 60s bto around here ran 1200 acres with one 830. He did have some support tractors. Don't remember what they were. Maybe a couple 70's.
 
There are PLENTY of people out there tough enough and willing to work like that.

You just can't afford to pay them. Back then it was a living wage. The wages haven't gone up much in 60 years.

There aren't too many good workers out there that are willing to work for barrel-bottom low pay and have nothing else to do but sit around and wait for your call when the corn is ready to go. They're working.

The truth of the matter is you can only offer sporadic work for a few weeks in the spring and a few in the fall. Folks gotta eat, so they gotta work a regular job.
 
My great grandpa farmed over 700 acres with a IH W-9 just himself. But he finished his career with a 4020 on the same acres.
 
I think I see it was in Canada ? Those were likely the tractors guys were going up after and reselling in Ohio as low hour units ! lol. Ohio had very few ( if any ) standard tractors sold back when they were new.
 
There were some guys around here back in the day who had 830s that were not impressed with it’s replacement the 4010/20.
 
Heard the same here from some guys,, I would like to have a 820 or 830 someday in my collection, I really like the sound they make under load,and love the Cat starting engines
 
To be fair my great grandpa traded in a 830 for a 4020 back in 1964 and didn’t regret it. However he was 80 years old at the time and it had the powershift so convenience might have been a factor. I know he didn’t make the plow any bigger when he went from the 830 to the 4020.

I have my uncles 820 and I overhauled the pony motor once. Pistons are the size of chain saw or weedeater pistons. And the main cylinders are the size of coffee cans:)
 
Been years since I was inside one of the starting engines,, they really SCREAM what is it like 3000 rpms or more? I can hear them in my head now,, used to run some CAT equipment with them
 
It’s at least 3,000 rpms. I thought they were around 4,000 but I can’t remember if that was the V4 or the 2 cylinder starting motor used in the R.
 
I spent many hours on tractors without cabs during many hot days and many cold days. Always had plenty of clothes on in the cold. But my body was much more resilient in my younger days. Now I get cold fingers wearing gloves at +20 degrees running a walk behind snowblower for a half hour.

I ran 3 different John Deere Rs for uncles and neighbors. They all used about 2 gals/hr on heavy tillage loads. Later the JD 720 diesel set a fuel economy record in the Neb tests.

Thanks for the memories.
 
The old timers did what they had to do to get the job done. People in many of those situations today just give up or they pay some one to do
the job for them.
 
Or, or guys around here that farmed that much used D8 cats, IH TD 24 crawlers or of you were real progressive one of them new fangled 4 wheel drive tractors like the 300 hp Wagner TR 24. The Steiger brothers had already made their first tractor in 1958. The guy in the ad with all the 830s most have had the monopoly on good cheap labor.
 
That was state of the art back then. So most operators were happy not to have a 1 bottom plow behind a horse.
 
I love it. Just for the record ( while I don’t farm full time ) , I am still out on
the open station 806 in the wind , rain , ice and dust. I like to think I’m
following my dad in his life long dream of a tractor with heat and AC. He
never had one. I might still.
 
My step mothers dad and his brother in north Dakota had an R they ran on 9 quarters. I do not know how much actual farm land they ran the R over because they had some pasture land along the James river. When I got hold of that R the hour meter showed a little over 6000 hours. They used it for 12 years so that adds up to 500 hours per year. Back in the days when they used it summer fallow was still popular so I suppose the R ran pretty much all spring and summer. To get that many hours on the clock it did not sit in the shed much during the growing season.
 
Did you ever hear of a Person named Faye Heasley ?He lived about 85 miles from me, he had 5 or 6 two cylinders JD!! More Smoke proabley can back up my story!
 
(quoted from post at 17:02:04 10/22/20) Where did you access that ad would love to read it. Can't read it in this format.
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I can read it ok. Its a page from one of my Country Guide magazines that I scanned a few years back. Its just over 430 kb so I guess the forum would be able to handle a bigger scan if I get around to doing one. . I think 2 mb is their limit.
 
Hi, where at along the James river? I grew up in the south central part. West of LaMoure which is on the
James. James River from SD/ND border to SD/NE border drops in elevation 1' per Mile!!
 
East of Fessenden ten miles or so maybe a little less. The tiny town of Bremen is a twitch north of the farm. My step mother was baptized in the James river.
 
Whatever the time period, those were modern times for those people, same as now for us. What you are referencing are the prairies, correct me. Lots of ground to cover for
what might have seemed like a worthwhile crop. I live in southwestern Ontario on what is a 50 acre farm. Growing up 150 acres was a lot of ground, if anyone told me back
then that guys would be farming 1,2,3 4 thousand acres, I would have said crazy. That is the way things are going. Interesting to hear a litany of complaints as you hold
the church door open for social distancing and contact tracing as times are so though and the poor farmers are out harvesting tomatoes and now beets. Those kids aren't
too worried about church and getting turned away as there are only so many spaces. We haven't turned anyone away as yet, how do you turn away an individual who wants to
catch a Mass?
 
hard work don't bother me none. I can lay down & go to sleep right beside of it.
 
My grandfather would have talked about how soft those men were for sitting on their butt all day. I don't know how many times I heard him talk about using two teams of
mules - by mid afternoon the first pair was worn out and he would hitch up the fresh pair to finish the day.
 
had a neighbor that had experience farming with horses .the day started way before light and ended way after dark .getting horses in the barn feeding them switching teams mending harnesses ect.

little Allis Chalmers shows up and it went to work when you got on at 6 and quit when you were done.
 
I was born in Oakes,ND. went to High School in LaMoure ,The James River went thru my Dads farm near Grand Rapids N.D.My nephew farms it now!
 
Now imagine plowing them fields with a mule and
picking the crop by hand all the while having some
white guy ready to whip you if you took more than a
30 second water break every couple of hours.

But you are right. None of us on this site know what
real work is.
 
(quoted from post at 00:37:24 10/23/20) I spent a lot of long days on an Allis Chalmers B cultivating corn when I was very young,a job I enjoyed really.
Click to expand...

It's a whole different ball game when you're the farmer working for yourself, or the farmer's kid who gets meals, clothing, a roof over your head, and a warm bed to sleep in.

If you're the hired help, you're doing this to make a living, because at the end of the day you have to drive yourself home, buy your own food/clothing, pay your own rent/mortgage, pay your own utility bills, etc.. You just can't do that on seasonal farm worker money.
 
(quoted from post at 06:37:42 10/23/20) I may get heck for this but I DO feel we know what hard work is today....its just different.
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No doubt some do know, or at least remember what hard work is, or was. But I suspect a lot of folks don't have a clue. I farm just around a thousand acres which is a hobby farm these days. And I do it with no hired help and work in comfort at my own speed with far bigger and more comfortable machinery than the open 830s in the ad. Of course at the time they were the biggest and best to be had. Maybe back in 1960 I'd have considered it a pretty good job to sit on an 830 for 12 hour shifts and a dollar an hour. If my feet could have reached the brake pedals :)
 
(quoted from post at 11:27:52 10/22/20) I was posting this 1960 ad on FB and thought it might be of interest here too. Imagine farming 3000 acres per year with a John Deere 830 tractor. The farm was 15,000 acres and they ran 5 of the 830s. That is sitting out on an open tractor in the heat, cold, dust, bugs, whatever nature threw at you.
This was an ad in the Country Guide magazine in 1960.

how about the old timers that ploughed 50 acres with a team of horses . Hand Sawed and split firewood .
Click to expand...
 
(quoted from post at 08:40:13 10/23/20)
how about the old timers that ploughed 50 acres with a team of horses . Hand Sawed and split firewood .
Click to expand...
As my ancestors did. And not having any option they were working with state of the art equipment so hard work was just a daily fact of life. There was no better or easier way to get the job done. For us in our modern spoiled lives of luxury it would be a major hardship to go back to that way of life
Click to expand...
 
My dad farmed with a R. He rented more land than he owned. That spring he seeded for 30 days.I
helped after school and on weekends. I did all the summer fallowing in the summer. The next year
he owned a 4010. Bud
 
I did too. Still have the B, those miserable one-row cultivators went to the scrapper years ago. My brother and I were in hog heaven when dad got a John Deere H WITH Two row cultivators.
 
I find the title of this topic pretty offensive. I will just say that I pretty much live in the same elements as you describe that these guys and gals did, being a product tester. We field test for durability/failures in heat, cold, wind, rain, sleet, ice....you name it for 8 hour shifts, 12 hours when we have special projects that need done. Sometimes 7 days a week when demand requires it. No one has a right to gripe until they are outdoors 8 plus hours a day (NOT in a cab mind you) working with whatever mother nature throws at you. The only occupation that is equal or rougher than testing IMO is "open station" farming, some forestry jobs and certainly the dairy business as well. I would go so far to say people who work in offices have no clue whatsoever as to what "hard" work really is. Anyway, I'm not sure I'm buying into this story about farming 15,000 acres with five 830s. Wouldn't you pretty much have to live on the tractor seat to get it accomplished?
 
Ever been in a concrete block plant? Worked plenty of 12 hour+ days in one,dirty,dusty,high humidity curing block with steam.Walk outside when it 95 degrees and it feels cool and refreshing.The difference from it and a lot of tough jobs way back when was I was paid very well to do the work.
 
(quoted from post at 23:31:55 10/23/20) I find the title of this topic pretty offensive. I will just say that I pretty much live in the same elements as you describe that these guys and gals did, being a product tester. We field test for durability/failures in heat, cold, wind, rain, sle Anyway, I'm not sure I'm buying into this story about farming 15,000 acres with five 830s. Wouldn't you pretty much have to live on the tractor seat to get it accomplished?
Click to expand...
I'd say you are in the minority of people that actually do know what hard work is. The average person I see or talk to these days would not work in those conditions. I would not either now but only because I'm old and I don't have to anymore.
As far as the accuracy of the story I can't vouch for it but see no reason to doubt it. 15,000 acres total would mean only 7500 acres to seed every spring. And 7500 acres of summerfallow to cultivate/disk through the summer. I don't think they would have any problem at all seeding at least 300 acres a day with 5 outfits.. So 25 days of seeding and they are done. I'm not allowing time for harrowing behind the one way disk seeders they were likely using but that goes pretty quick with 50 feet of harrows.
 
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